In about the year 1990, a major event in music history happened: at the same time that Nicholas Edward Cave made his first serious attempt to give up heroin, he also became rather interested in Jesus. Although he would not finally kick the heroin habit until 1997 (leading to a four-year break in recording), 1990 also marks a distinctive shift in his writing and music. As he put it, somewhat offhandedly, we can divide his work according to the Bible: while the 1970s and 1980s may be called his Old Testament period, from the 1990s onward it has been the New Testament: “After a while I started to feel a little kinder and warmer to the world, and at the same time started to read the New Testament” (Hattenstone 2008, [PP]). Indeed, in his studio in Hove, near Brighton in England, there hangs a painting of Christ in all his suffering. So why does Cave have such a fascination with the Bible, especially the figure of Christ?